


Familiär (Can you walk on the water if I?)

by alittlefrenchtree



Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017) RPF
Genre: A little bit of angst, Let me introduce the 'How dumb two people in love can be?' story, M/M, Recreational Drug Use, See notes for more infos, Sexuality talk, You know how I love to tag my stories as #ambiguity?, a conversation, a little bit of cuteness, very brief non descriptive mention of it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:09:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28221447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alittlefrenchtree/pseuds/alittlefrenchtree
Summary: "The biggest part of me had prayed he hadn’t heard me — or had pretended he hadn’t had — so I could forget all about it for a long time, most likely another decade. I had successfully done it before, about many things. But a remaining part of me had been dying to finally have that conversation. I shouldn’t have been surprised that I had unconsciously chosen Timmy to do so. It should have been Luca, but Luca would have forced me to abruptly face things I had been too afraid of. In more ways than one, Timmy had felt safer."
Relationships: Timothée Chalamet/Armie Hammer
Comments: 21
Kudos: 50





	Familiär (Can you walk on the water if I?)

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! 
> 
> Quick word before we start.
> 
> I made [a tumblr post](https://alittlefrenchtree.tumblr.com/post/637503561132097536/armie-x-timmy-a-mostly-fictional-universe-by) with a timeline of all of my stories that belong in the same universe. There are not all linked to each other on AO3 so if you want to have a global vision, now you can :)
> 
> To be more specific on the tags: there is a conversation about sexuality with mentions of coming out, homo/biphobia and maybe some internalized homophobia thoughts (I don't know if they really are but someone is definitely confused and anxious about himself.  
> Read safe and please don’t hesitate to ask if you have any specific concern or question ❤️
> 
> The title is from a song by [ Anges Obel, Familiär](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32kYH6XZrIo). I put a link to it in the form of a 🎵 at some point of the story. If I were directing this story and not writing it, that’s where I would have chose to start to play the said song.
> 
> A million thank yous to Lou for making sure my stories are somehow readable for native English speakers. Best koala ever ❤️  
> Any remaining mistake is because I'm a pain in the ass to beta.
> 
> I really hope I did justice to the thematics of this story. I did my very best.
> 
> See you on the other side :)

**_New-York, 2017_ **

"Are you really straight?"

"What?"

"Are you— Nah, forget it."

_The biggest part of me had prayed he hadn’t heard me — or had pretended he hadn’t had — so I could forget all about it for a long time, most likely another decade. I had successfully done it before, about many things. But a remaining part of me had been dying to finally have that conversation. I shouldn’t have been surprised that I had unconsciously chosen Timmy to do so. It should have been Luca, but Luca would have forced me to abruptly face things I_ _had been_ _too afraid of. In more ways than one, Timmy had felt safer._

_A few days ago, we'd had a quiet evening together. It felt stupid writing it, as if it'd been something extraordinary but the truth was, it hadn’t happened in such a long time it had felt like a treat to ourselves. It had been a long day and everyone else had left, probably sick to death to have watched and listened to us talk all day long about the same things for what had already felt like the billionth day of promo. Luca had disappeared for a dinner to which Timmy and I'd been both very much_ not _invited to. Timmy should have gone home forever ago but he had stayed with me, pacing in my hotel room, still buzzing with the energy of the day while I'd been lying on the couch, completely beat up. I had been listening to the sound of his voice more than to his actual words, the rhythm lulling me to the gates of sleep._

_Every now and then, I could hear the plastic rumple of the bag of gummy bears or whatever the fuck he had been snacking on —_ "they’re **_lucioles_** , Armie _,_ " _he had said, the french word in his month catching me off guard._ "Or actually, that’s how Pauline and I called them when we were kids. I’m pretty sure they’re just colorful worms" _— the tip of his tongue getting bluer and bluer with each piece he had shoved inside his mouth._

_By now and with a few years in the industry under his belt, he knew how promo days worked but he was still very enthusiastic to charge producers with overpriced candies. I had gently mocked him at first, telling him to wait until he'd offered $5,000 of seafood platters to all the clients of a restaurant on the count of the Warner to see what it really felt like to live a little, but quickly had felt like a pretentious jerk. He was the one doing it right, very aware of the privilege of having any food he wanted handed to him freely (or as so) at any hour of the day just because we were working._

_After a few seconds of silence, I had noticed he had been caught up in something on his phone, his limbs all over the armrests of a chair near me. Not distracted by his personal commentary of each minute of our day anymore, my mind had started to wander on its own, processing the very same events, but seen through a very different perspective. Most parts of the interviews had already been thrown away, but one part kept coming back, poking at my attention over and over until the question had slipped past my lips without allowing me time to really think about what I was about to ask._ Are you really straight? 

_Dammit Hammer, way to sound like a dumbass._

"Armie…" _He had said, and I wasn’t sure about the tone of his voice._ "You can’t ask that." _He'd been trying to be gentle but I had immediately felt like the most stupid student in the room, slowly getting on the nerves of his very patient professor. Blinded by my susceptibility and my pride, I had probably been too quick to answer, sure of my legitimacy. We were friends — friends who'd happened to have spent several days naked together in the same bed. He would remain my friend anyway. So I had a right to wonder, no? I couldn’t have cared less about what he called himself._

"Then why did you ask?"

_Why, indeed? Given our talks in Crema, I had assumed he wasn’t straight. But since the beginning of the promo tour, he had never denied any of the people who had assumed he was — which I could understand — but hadn’t even talked about it with me or with anyone that I knew of afterwards. Had I misjudged him back then or was he still hiding the truth now and was somehow comfortable with it? I had shrugged,_ "Curious, I guess."

"You can’t— You really can’t be curious about people’s sexuality." _Obviously, this was something my thick self should have already known. Something educated ten-year-olds were probably all aware of._ "Even if you’re one of my best friends…" _He had put his phone aside at this point and straightened his posture to sit cross-legged while looking at me._

"Every queer person’s coming out is a personal process. You have to respect that everyone is doing it on their own terms, at their own pace and to whom they want — which is not necessarily you."

_He had frowned, looking for the right way to explain, the soft features of his face all upset._ "What if you ask someone who is still trying to figure themselves out and aren’t ready to share anything yet? What if you ask someone who already came out to someone they trusted but it didn’t go as they had planned and they’re not ready to talk about it again? However you look at it, the question is only safe for straight people so there is really no good way to ask it."

_I had made a silent promise to myself to fully understand what he'd meant and to never forget it._

"Truth is… You never know. I know — knew — someone who came out to his best friend. He was so sure of him, wouldn’t have suspected in a million years he would reject him. He was the first person he came out to. That's how much he trusted the guy."

"What happened?"

_He had shaken his head, unwilling to share the story. Thinking about it, I was grateful he hadn’t and suspected he already knew the story wasn’t what I had needed in my head in that moment._

"Obviously, I don’t care if you ask me or talking about it with you but generally speaking… Try not to?"

"I’m so goddamn ignorant. I star as a —" _I had tasted the word on my tongue, unsure_ "— a **_queer_** character in a movie, have already done before, and I still feel like I don’t know anything about nothing. I’m such a fraud."

_At this point, I had needed to put some physical distance between us. Standing in front of the window and looking at the lights of the city blooming in the night had been less an excuse not to look at his face with shame than to hide mine, because I had been too afraid he, while looking into my eyes, would've suddenly realized I was right. A fraud, a fraud, a fraud._

_In the window reflection, I had seen his curls bounce as he shook his head. "_ The thing you’re doing right now? Caring? It's worth everything," _he had said and I had wanted nothing more than to believe him._ "Even if you don’t know how to ask… I’d take your awkward questions over you not giving a shit at all at any time of any day."

_He had allowed me a minute to recollect. Then had asked,_ "Would you rather come back here or have me come to you?" _Seeing me lost, he had added:_ "I have no intention of talking to the back of your head, so if you want us to have a real conversation, I need to know the setting you’re more comfortable with. _"_

_Since the day we'd met, Timmy had kept on bringing the concept of consent to a whole new level for me. He was always applying it to every human interaction he had, whether in making sure the other person was the most comfortable possible or in his way of valuing opinions and feelings. I still wasn't used to it, not to that extend at least, and on more than one occasion, it had made me feel unsettled for reasons I wasn't sure I understood._

_I had walked my way back to him, a small gesture in his direction to thank him._

_I had sat back close to him, looking at my knees. I'd been waiting for him to start talking but he was waiting for me to look at him. The second I had, he had smiled at me. My attention had walked through the fine lines that had appeared at the corners of his eyes and for a couple of seconds, I had dreamt of still being in his life when these expression wrinkles would have settled into permanent marks on his skin. For the moment, his smile and his sparkling eyes had been enough to untangle the knot in my throat. To be on the end of such an endearing look surely must've meant that I wasn't that bad._

"I don’t define myself through labels and it includes my sexuality as well. I’ve mostly been with girls so far but— I don’t know how to explain it. They’re just people, you know? Whoever I’m with that’s how I see them — as people."

"Do you know why you’ve been more with girls?" _Maybe there had been something here for me to understand. But I had also been trying my best to match his consent policy and to not overstep. I was grateful he had accepted to share informations with me which, if held by the wrong hands, could've very much destroyed the career he wanted to build. Maybe I should've warned him about that after the end of our era. Trustworthy people were too few in this industry._

_Yet again, Brian being a friend of his family, must have said it to him early on, when he was still very young. Over the past decade, our business had often made me angry. It'd been the first time it was washing a wave of sadness over me. I could too easily picture the image of a teenage Timmy being told he had to hide a part of himself in order to accomplish his dearest dream._

_"_ I— maybe that’s not true. But my longest relationships have been with girls, I think. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because I’m the idiot who always fall for the wrong kind of guys." _He had slightly blushed and tried to bury his words under a chuckle and a self-depreciating comment: "_ Not that I’ve been capable of maintaining anything serious with girls either, if I’m being honest."

_And because I had hated how uncomfortable he had sounded, I had slightly shifted the subject._

"It’s not that I don’t like them," _he had answered to my following question about labels._ "They’re useful for so many reasons, like social fights and political issues and helping kids know they aren’t alone. I just— I don’t feel the need to identify to just a word over another and I feel like maybe it’s something that we should hear and say more often. That it’s ok to not choose one. That being yourself is worth enough words already. More than enough actually, being yourself is beautiful."

_For a moment, listening to him, I had forgotten all about me. The only thing on my mind had been to remember his exact words so I’d be able to repeat them to Harper and Ford when they’d need it._

_I wanted them to never doubt they were enough and to grow around people like Timmy. I wanted_ me _to have grown around people like Timmy. I wasn't sure how to achieve this for my children or if I was brave enough to look at what I should do to not be too late for them, like it probably was for me. Maybe I could start by the way I talked to them._

"Do you know why you’re asking?" _His voice had been smooth, inviting. He had sounded so safe, tempting like the calm ocean beckoning your heated body on a hot summer day. Fighting against it, I had repeated,_

"Told you, just curious."

_With the hope that he'd believe it. I hadn’t realized how much energy the battle against myself had required of me until I had felt his hands wrap around my wrists, his thumbs lightly pressing into the hollows of the bones as an anchor for me to hold onto._

"Armie. You’re shaking." 

"I’m just ti— It’s nothing. Sorry." _I had tried to withdraw my hands but his grip on me had tightened. His fingertips inking into my skin, the light bite telling me everything would be alright._

"Don’t apologize, talk to me."

"I don’t know. I just— I don’t know."

_He had understood I didn’t know where to start, more than anything else. His thumbs had kept dancing in circles on my arms to slow the rush of my blood underneath._

_Should I have commenced the story with the events of the day, with Crema, with the aftermath ofLuca’s call explaining how my fear of playing Oliver was only the reflection of my desire to_ be _Oliver, with our conversation six years earlier or with 18 years of conservative and Christian education between the eighties and the nineties?_

"Earlier today when that guy asked the same dumb question about you know, playing gay characters…"

"Did you notice how none of them ever talk about Elio being bi? Like did they even watch the movie? 

_I hadn’t noticed but had been way too ashamed to admit it. Fraud, fraud, fraud. Stop the count. Massive fraud._

"Sorry, sorry, I shouldn’t have interrupted when you were saying something important. Go on, please."

"No, no, you’re right! You— _we_ should be bothered by that." _He had smiled at me again, telling me it wasn’t insensitive to go back to our initial subject._ "They talked about us being straight and you didn’t really react, so I’ve started to wonder…"

"Mmh."

"What?"

"Can I be— Can I be painfully honest for a minute?"

No _, I had screamed in my head._ Please accept that the ten per cent I’m giving to you are the whole truth, like almost everybody has been doing my entire life, half because of my habit to hide, half because, maybe, there weren’t that many people with actual listening abilities around me _._

"You need my permission for that?" _I had said instead._

"No, it’s just that I— It kind goes against what I said earlier about— Never mind. Maybe I should g—" 

_He had initiated a move to stand up, ready to run away. Despite his looks, I was constantly destabilized by the remaining tokens of his youth. How could've I anticipated his juvenile embarrassment when he was out-smarting me most of the time?_

"Wait— So you’re not going to say anything at all?"

"I—"

"Just fucking say it, Timmy." _His ass had fallen back on the seat at my command._

"You didn’t— You didn’t get yourself all distressed just because you were wondering whether I’m straight or not."

_I had opened and closed my mouth without a sound, words slipping out of my mind like water running through fingers._

"It’s ok, Armie. It doesn’t have to mean anything. But if it does, I just want you to know that it would be ok too."

_I had swallowed, struggling with the dryness of my throat._

"I realized that I’ve never asked myself that much about… myself. I’m not saying— I’m not saying anything, it’s just that—I guess I’m just curious about how you know when, you’re not?" _and I swore I had seen his pupils expand a bit._ "I’m annoying you, ain’t I? Forget it, it’s not important."

"No, not at all! It’s not— I zoned out for a second, sorry. I don’t mind answering, really. I promise. It’s just… I’m not, I’m not used to being the one in this position, so I’m not sure what to say. Or how to say it."

_I had been able to help him with that by asking him how it had been for him. We probably had already touched on the subject before, maybe passing near but not quite like this, not with this intent._

"Many people would say that— the usual thing about how they always kind of knew, even when they thought they didn’t? And I guess it was the same for me. There wasn’t any groundbreaking moment or overnight revelation about myself. It’s just— now that I’m almost an adult, each day comes with more things about my childhood and my pre-teen years that I understand better because I know more about who I am now?"

_I'd wanted to tell him. I'd wanted to tell him how amazing he was, because I hadn’t understood jack shit about myself at 21 — and certainly hadn’t had the distance, or any cell in my body smart enough to do any kind of retrospective on anything about my childhood. I was barely starting to understand things about me and my life now, as I was much older and on a completely different life path. I had wanted to tell him but I had also been savoring a strange sense of peace in listening to him talk about himself and his own experience and I hadn't wanted to interrupt him._

"Then there were Kid Cudi and Frank Ocean."

_I had wondered if he had heard the_ of course _I had chuckled under my breath. There wasn’t a single part of this kid’s life that wasn’t linked to one (or the two) of his two favorite artists._

"You know, the hip-hop field isn’t the most outspoken— Let’s say it’s not really friendly for everybody. Not only queer people but everybody who isn’t that caricatural figure of bullshit masculinity. I was young — even younger _(he had laughed at that)_ — and fucking lost like every young person ever is but I loved hip-hop. But I also felt like hip-hop wasn’t loving me, which is kind of stupid but you know. The loudest voices sometimes make you think like you don’t belong where you really want to be. That you aren’t wanted or haven’t what it takes to be legitimate. And suddenly there was this guy who was talking about mental health and this other guy proudly saying he’s bisexual right before the release of his debut album and— and they’re just so fucking talented and successful. I’d figured that, if there was room for people like them in an industry as… _difficult_ as the hip-hop industry is, there could be room for everybody everywhere. All I had — have — to do is find my own way."

_How did he do that? How did he always sound like he was just speaking whatever was passing through his mind at the moment and actually gave me life lessons I would have never wrapped my mind around before my 50s? How too smart could he be? How too damn stupid could_ I _be?_

"I actually have a story about— You don't have any copy of Call Me on you, have you?"

_I had handed him my phone, in which I’d kept a copy since the recording of the audiobook. Device in hand, Timmy had flipped the virtual pages for a while, looking for something specific, then had started reading the book back to me, his voice once again on Elio’s words._

_He had read for a few lines. Then asked,_ "Does it make you think of someone? Anyone you admired as a teen or earlier?"

"I’m not sure."

"A friend of mine… Obviously she already knew she was bisexual before reading Call Me but she liked that part because it made her see a lot of things about herself. How many of her favorite characters as a young girl were women she both wanted to be and had a crush on. Reading the feelings put into words made some pieces clicked inside her mind. She now understands better what was going on for her back then and it’s always nice. To understand things about yourself." 

_I had tried, as much as I could, to imagine a reality where finding out stuff about myself could've led to a positive reaction. Where it could've been something I could seek and not avoid at all cost. I had came up empty, the mills of my mind spinning their wheels._

"It’s mostly what we mean, when we said stuff like, we always knew somehow. Even without the right words, it was already there."

_Meeting my eyes, he had immediately knitted his browns and had quickly added,_ "But I guess it’s easier to know early on when you grow up in an environment that didn’t force any kind on sexuality on you or has cut you from others. I don’t want to give you — or anyone — the impression that my way is the only way to do or to be. There isn’t a wrong way or a wrong age to figure shit about yourself." 

_He had laughed, apologetic._ "Fuck, I’m only a dumb twenty-year-old kid, who doesn’t know shit about himself, I would be very unable to give life lessons to anyone."

"You’re almost 22, grand pa", _I had tried to joke but he had overlooked my words, my tone and my attempt to make him smile._

"Armie, is this—" _He had paused and the astounded look spreading on his face had given away his thoughts before his lips had had a chance to curl around them._

_He would hate me. Think I had lied to him. I would taint our past I loved so much and the future of our friendship. Everything between us would become awkward. I'd needed to try something to save it, to save us._

"I never asked myself these kind of questions, because of— you know. How I grew up. But I guess, I guess it’s what happens to most straight people, regardless of their family background?"

_He had kept looking at me in silence, waiting. He'd had no intention of filling up the blank spaces in my head but had given me time to see if I had been willing to do it myself. To be honest with me first and with him second, if I'd wanted to. Meeting his patient gaze, I hadn't know how not to be._

"But I’m also wondering now, can you really know the answer to a question you've never asked yourself? And would that answer be different if I had? And then I can't help but wonder, would a straight person think about all of that?"

"I don’t know, maybe the smart ones?"

"So I’m either a smart straight person or a dumb non-straight one? There’s worse in life, I suppose."

"I never said that!" _I couldn’t help but love how scandalized he had looked. He'd been cute, thinking he may have offended me._

"I know, I’m just shitting with you."

_The smile he had given me out of relief had brightened the entire room._

_In the few minutes that had followed, the topic had seemed to quietly walk away. It hadn’t closed the door on its way out, and even if we had slowly circled back to the interviewers’ tendency to completely erase Elio’s bisexuality, I could still see the threads of our thoughts still attached to the previous side of our conversation, the strands a shining slivery highlight floating across the room._

_In a quick pull, Timmy had brought it back right in front of us._

"Armie, you know you can change your mind about these things, right?"

"Change my mind about my sexuality?"

"I don’t want to overstep but— you seem to think that people have to commit to one—" _He had stopped mid-sentence, shaken his head and tried again._ "Just because someone has used one word for them doesn’t mean they can’t use new ones as they learn more about themselves. Or just try them to see if they feel comfortable with them, you know? That’s why I find labels so frustrating sometimes. Because everybody, including our own selves, makes it so difficult to drop them when we want or need to. And like, fuck that."

_I had smiled back at him._

***

"Timmy."

"Yeah?"

"You’re not a woman."

"How did you figure that out?"

"Can you kiss me?"

"Wh— WHAT?"

"You’re not a woman. So you could kiss me. So I can see how it feels."

_At this point and like most of the times we were smoking together, we had been siting on the floor, my back against the bed, him lying on his back on the carpet. I hadn’t blamed the weed, but I had made sure he had. We’d been high together enough times for him to know the signs and for me to use them. It had felt both manipulative and puerile, like a preteen pretending to be drunk while he was barely tipsy from the illegal half of a glass he’d been siping for three hours. If anything, it had given me the courage to ask something I had often thought about. Over the past year, kissing Timmy had been on my mind more times that I'd liked to admit. What had been — and still was — baffling me was that I couldn't connect the way I was drawn to him with any ground I was familiar with. It was love, that I was sure of. Everything else belonged to an undefined realm of confusion._

"You’re aware that we’ve already kissed multiple times?"

"Not as us."

_I had seen by the look of his face that he hadn’t bought any of it. He knew and knew that I knew about the many times Elio and Oliver hadn’t been the only ones kissing before the lens. That we had been tasting each other in their shadows, waiting for them to close their eyes for us to open our senses and find our hideout in their retreat. He knew. I knew. Yet I had silently begged him to forget for one second just to allow me to have a taste of him again. Allow him to have a taste of me again._

"Haven’t you already kissed another man before? ..And please don’t talk to me about Leo DiCaprio, that thing was barely a kiss."

_I had. He already knew as we had talked about it before. We had shared our experiences without never specifically mentioning our sexuality. For Elio and Oliver as for us, it hadn’t seemed relevant at the time. I didn’t know why the thing I had always managed not to look at too closely, or to dismiss the importance of it for years, had suddenly became important now. With Crema and everything afterwards, Timmy and Luca had put it back in my mind — first as a distant buzzing which with time had started to hold captive more and more of my attention, sometimes keeping me awake at night without any answers._

"I— It’s not— It was a terrible idea, wasn’t it? I should apologized for even asking."

"No no no no, that’s not what I— I’m just trying to understand where you're coming from. I don’t want you to re— We can kiss. Obviously."

_The disbelief in his voice had been more audible than his nervousness. Or at least that was what I had wanted to believe._

_He had hastily sat up, walked on all fours towards me and brushed his lips against mine, a feather touch as the only point of contact between our bodies. Then he had paused, waiting for me._

***

"Armie? Can I ask you a favor?"

_He had retreated far away from me, perched on his armchair once again. He had tightly tucked both of his knees under his chin, hugging them. I had recognized his favorite comfort position when he was overwhelmed, whether in a positive or a negative way._

_Fuck. That hadn't been part of the plan. What had I done to him?_

"Shoot."

"Can we— after tonight— Can we not talk about it.. ever? I mean, I’m 100% here for you if you want to talk about anything or to help if you need me but. Not the kissing part? Please?"

"So _I_ was the terrible kisser."

"No, no I didn’t mean it like that. Like, at all."

_Across the room, we had shared a look. It had been enough to bring back the memory of his body heat all around me. My fingers had clenched on their own over nothing, empty of him._

"I just— I need this moment to stay here. I can’t— I really can’t take it with me. It’ll be easier to just, let it here in this fancy hotel room, right?"

_I had nodded without a word, unsure of what he meant. Was he regretting what we had done? Had he already started to hate me? If he had, he hadn’t shown any sign of it in the following days. He hadn't acted like he had erased it from his memory — because that would have left a trace, a shadow of something that was once there and to which I could have clung to — but like it had never happened to him. The Timmy who had agreed to kiss me and did was gone, had followed a path away from me and into a parallel universe. Maybe he had met another Armie, a smarter version of me, quicker to figure himself out._ _I was left with the Timmy I hadn’t kissed, the one to whom I hadn’t even asked and it hurt. Not only because that parallel Timmy had left with a tiny part of me, but because I was the only one staying with a memory which wasn’t shared with anyone anymore. Only me listening to the silent secrets we had given a voice to._

_***_

_Later that night, long after Timmy had gone and arrived home safely (he had sent a text to notice me, then another full of various emojis, and a last one saying he was proud to be my friend and happy to have a chance to have a lot of time with me again), I had spent a couple of hours lying on the (thank god) enormous bed with my laptop._

_Facing the blank page of the open browser, the bright white lightly burning my vision, I had found myself blinking with the slider. Mind empty._

What to type when you— _…I had ended up on Pornhub._

_There wasn’t a single tab of that damn website I hadn’t explored — whether it'd been out of arousal, boredom, sexual or intellectual curiosity — but there had been some I knew less than others. After half an hour scrolling through the gay videos, I had started wondering what I'd been doing. My body and mind had been hardly interested. The results had been barely more noticeable with the videos in the bisexual category. Switching to my usual poison, I had realized the sexual orientation of the videos hadn't been the problem. I hadn’t been in the mood and nothing had really interested me at that moment._

_What then?_

_At first, I had avoided Timmy’s image. He was my friend and it would have felt wrong, using what I had seen filming our movie for my own personal experimentation. I wanted to preserve the memories as they were, pure and safe and untainted. I had randomly googled the name of men I usually thought as beautiful, an aleatory combination of friends, former co-workers, fellow actors and various people who had caught my eyes or my attention, one way or another. I had felt mostly stupid. What was I trying to find or to prove?_

_I had closed all of the windows on my screen at once and out of frustration, shaking my head at myself, feeling annoyed by my own behavior. I had seen enough men in my life not to have to stare at pictures to know what they looked like._

_I had opened a fresh new window, wandering on YouTube to distract myself. Fifteen minutes later, as I had been watching a series of videos that were maybe the first step for me to understand what Timmy had tried to tell me with the quote he had picked from the book._

_They were dancers, beautiful bodies — some clearly female, some clearly male, some beautifully androgynous — moving gracefully around the stage, my eyes following their movements. These were people I wished I'd been, to some extent at least. The perfect proportions of their apparences, the grace animating their every move, their dancing skills, their appealing elegance. I knew it was something I would have wished for myself if it had been of any use to wish, a way to never feel uncomfortable in my own skin again — too tall, too large, too big. But was it something I'd wanted to_ have _in addition of something I'd wanted to_ be _? Or like Aciman had suggested, were they really the two parts of the same coin only pulled apart by a societal wall made of subterfuges?_

_I had closed the laptop after a couple more videos, a loud sigh escaping my chest. I couldn’t have thought of a single reality where these questions would have mattered in my life._

_Laying on my back later that night, eyes wide open on the ceiling, I had thought of Timmy again.[🎵](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32kYH6XZrIo)_

_I had known the kiss was a bad idea since the moment I had seen the agreement shine in his eyes. I should've stopped it — him — us. I hadn't wanted it to happen like that. He was going to hate me for it. I didn’t know if it was going to be the day after or ten years from that moment but he would hate me at some point. Seeing his face leaning into mine, it had been the only certitude in my mind:_ this kiss is going to make him hate you _. But he hadn’t hated me then, not yet._

_He had been smiling at me. Not his lips— he had them slightly open already, expecting — but his eyes, his skin, him in his entirety had been glowing at me, both inviting and trusting me with the decisions._

_I had closed the gap between us without knowing where to put my hands. His whole body had suddenly seemed off-limits. My hands had ghosted over his back, near his waist, up his neck without finding anywhere to land. I hadn’t wanted to abuse more than what I was already taking from him and touching him anywhere would have felt like pushing._

"Stop thinking," _he had whispered, barely stepping back to speak, the slow movement of his nose brushing up and down against the bridge of mine, even more grounding than his words._ "It’s just me."

_I had settled on his face. His face had felt safe and mine and the perfect fit for the cradle of my hands._

_On his knees, towering me of a few inches, he had taken my hands in his, peeled them from his face to leave them around his neck while his had crawled up my nape and sneaked into my hair, locking all of his fingers in the strands._

_He had kept saying my name, over and over and over. Every time we had stopped to take a breath, he had softly whispered all the letters of my identity and risen me into a state of veneration. "_ Armie, Armie, Armie."

_Kissing him had felt light. Or I had felt light kissing him at least. Like a game, not because it had been fake but because it had been fun. And maybe that was something I had lost side of for too many years. His hands everywhere on my face and his lips on mine had reminded me of my teenage years. Back to that moment, when you realized everybody, including yourself, has a power of seduction just waiting to be used. When you understood you could be desired and loved even if you weren't perfect, even if you were yourself. When kissing was just kissing and you both wanted to keep doing it, because it felt both nice and enjoyable._

"So how was it?"

"I’m not sure," _I had distractedly said back to him, barely able to focus on his words, let alone on how I'd felt. All I knew was how plump his lips had felt under the pad of my thumb as I'd been trying to wipe away their wetness._

"Fuck, what a terrible kisser I must be."

"No, it’s just that—" _I had frowned, looking for a way to formulate a thought without sounding like I had been taking advantage of him all along. Tried,_ "I kind of already knew I like kissing you?" _while hopefully looking at him._

_He had giggled, said_ "me too" _and had gone for my lips again._

_He had kept chuckling every time we had paused — not only to breath but mostly to look at each other — his face laughing as much as his whole body, too happy for his own skin, bouncing between my hands. If I had to pick up an illustration for felicity, I would have chosen the look on his face at this moment, framed it in the softest gold I could have found and hung it in the museum of my life as one of the achievements I was the proudest of — because this sheer look had been mine and mine alone for a few mere seconds._

_But every time our lips had met again, I had forgotten all about the solemnity of my thoughts and it had appeared to me that I could've kept on kissing him forever. Luckily, and as he was destined to be on many occasions I was sure, he'd been the one keeping me afloat._

"Still nothing?"

"Well, I wouldn’t call _this_ nothing but… I don’t know. I fucking don’t—"

_He must have seen that I'd been flirting with the verge of panic again, not knowing how to answer questions I didn’t know what they were asking yet. He had pecked my lips again to shut me up, quick and, if I had dared to say, slightly commanding._

"It’s okay, Armie."

_I had been very aware that he had already said that earlier and he had kept repeating it until I had managed to offer a shy smile to his inquisitive eyes._

"I don’t have all the answers either." _His eyes had been piercing, erasing the years I had on him. Under his gaze, I had felt way younger, younger than him and I had been sure half of the meaning of his words had escaped me. But I had felt safe. Safe in his hands, safe knowing he was allowing me time to find out what I didn’t know yet, and even better, that he wasn’t forcing his answers to my questions._

"I’m not sure what it means about me," _I had admitted after a long and quiet hug while he had played with my hair._

"It means you like kissing me."

"Because I like you."

"It means you like me."

"You’re an idiot."

"An idiot you like."

"Shut up."

**Author's Note:**

> If you feel the need to yell at me, I'm also @alittlefrenchtree on tumblr :)


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